Getting Out Of Your Head
I recently had a book recommended to me after sharing with a friend all the anxiety and stress I’d been feeling, lately. When first opening the book, I wasn’t sure how easily I’d get pulled into reading about issues, stress and anxiety. However, I quickly realized I would not be able to put it down. “Get Out Of Your Head” by Jennie Allen has had me taking notes non stop and is full of suggestions for stopping or, at least slowing down the thoughts that threaten to overtake my days (and probably yours too!). Many of the thoughts I’m including in this blog post are inspired or taken from the book so consider this my massive bibliography AND advertisement all in one.
How we think really DOES shape how we live our days and how we live is shaped by what we see, hear, and think about. So HOW do we quiet all the voices we are constantly hearing? By putting IN to our heads what we want to think about and focus on. Not always easy to do but important, nonetheless. How often do we go to our spouse, parent or friend to ask for advice on what we should do to best handle a situation? Let me tell you, we ALL need to go to Jesus FIRST. This is not meant to be a spiritual post but as a Christian I truly do strive to seek Jesus first and that is easily done by reading the Bible and praying. But I also surround myself with friends who are breathing life into me. Think of it this way, if you’re trying to lose weight it does not mean you suddenly stop WANTING pizza and fries but it probably (hopefully!) means you DO stop going through the McDonald’s drive through or ordering pizza everyday. Right? You stop doing things you know aren’t going to get you where you want to go. Same is true for spiritual growth. You may not read the Bible daily or go to church weekly but if you want to grow closer to Christ you should TRY to.
However, life typically gets busy for all of us and before we know it we haven’t opened our Bibles in a month or gone to church in a year, or even prayed in who knows how long? More than likely you’ve suffered other set backs too. You lost the job, you got looked over for a promotion or raise, gained the weight you were trying to lose, had issues with your children, and so on.
God exists in community and He also formed US to need community. No one exists alone – we all have neighbors, family, friends, work and other types of people in our lives and we would not be able to exist successfully without them. The enemy knows how to keep us from a close relationship with God but he doesn’t do it in a straightforward way – he gets us in the easiest way. Distraction. How easily can any of us making it through an entire day without our phones, iPads, laptops and other devices? Impossible, more than likely. Satan keeps us busy with distractions that we are too busy to realize are distractions. Before we know it, we haven’t asked our kids about school, spouse about work, family about their lives, or returned texts from our best friend asking to get together. We lose the intimacy in relationships we consider the most important thing in our lives all because we were too busy.
We don’t have to necessarily love the circumstances we find ourselves in but we can be open to finding blessings they hold. Jennie shared a story about pottery in her book that I LOVED. I won’t get it perfect but the gist was that those of us who are not highly skilled in pottery making may naively walk into a class thinking we are about to make the most beautiful bowl the world has ever seen. Or maybe we have zero preconceived notions about how our attempt will turn out. However, once we put the piece we are working on in the fire, we have no idea how it will look, after. When you open the kiln it could be perfect and beautiful and it may have broken into a million pieces. Those are the only options. How different are we as humans, from the pottery piece? When we walk through difficult moments we will either come out stronger in the end, or completely fallen apart.
I want to come out knocking down walls, I’m so strong! How about you?
